


pulvis et umbra sumus (we are but dust and shadow)

by rudderless in an ocean of stars (indelibly_ellie)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), basically them trying to cope I guess, im so sorry, it’s honestly just pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 17:51:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14478015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indelibly_ellie/pseuds/rudderless%20in%20an%20ocean%20of%20stars
Summary: “It’s not the end of the world yet.”“Isn’t it?”//Natasha and Steve, in the aftermath.





	pulvis et umbra sumus (we are but dust and shadow)

**Author's Note:**

> I’m so dehydrated from all this crying. Send help. And water.

It ends up being Natasha who finds him first, hours after the apocalypse.

 

He’s holed up in the cockpit of the quinjet, curled up on the floor by the controls because he can’t bring himself to sit in the pilot’s seat.

 

Sam’s seat.

 

The empty chair draws both of their gazes like a magnet as she approaches.

 

After two years of the three of them functioning as a single, cohesive unit, the space between Steve and Natasha alone feels like something tangible.

 

The silence stretches between them like a void, a black hole leaving nothing but cold, aching darkness in its wake.

 

Natasha reaches out to rest a hand on the seat and tries to summon one of her trademark smirks.

 

 _For comfort_ , he thinks, but all he can focus on is the way he sees her fingers shake before they settle on the chair’s back, the way her lips twitch as her expression falters for the briefest of seconds as though her facade might crumple at any moment.

 

He sees the Black Widow’s walls crack for the first time since Nick Fury was dead on an operating table in front of them.

 

“We’ll get them back,” she says, forceful, insistent, like she could impose her will on the universe if she just tried hard enough. “It’s not the end of the world yet.”

 

He can almost make out his reflection in her eyes, glassy with unshed tears.

 

Her voice had wobbled on the latter half of what he supposed was her attempt at bolstering his spirits.

 

He knows what he’s _supposed_ to do.

 

Knows what she so desperately needs but cannot bring herself to ask for.

 

Reassurance.

 

The promise that everything is going to be alright, somehow, someway, no matter that they’ll both know it’ll likely be proven a lie.

 

Because Natasha is fragile right now, like a fractured pane of glass still in its frame, one touch away from shattering into a million pieces, irreparable.

 

He knows this.

 

But something dark and bitter has been brewing in his heart since he watched Bucky crumble away into dust, and it is from that fathomless well of incandescent rage and festering grief that his next words emerge from.

 

They crawl up his throat and force them from his lips like poison, like venom, like blood from injuries within that the eye cannot see.

 

He regrets his words before they even leave his mouth but he spits them out all the same.

 

“Isn’t it?”

 

The way Natasha flinches away from him will haunt his dreams in the days to come.

 

She stands unmoving for a moment, not even breathing, inhumanly still.

 

Then the dam breaks, and Natasha curls in on herself like a crumpled piece of paper, shoulders shaking with sobs that force her to her knees.

 

He reaches out to pull her into his arms and she goes, pliant and yielding like she’s never been before.

 

Like there’s not an ounce of fight left in her bones.

 

He tries not to think about what’s left in him, if there’s anything left at all aside from the hollowness that has crept into the hearts of the half of the universe that remains.

 

He tries not to think at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Marvel won’t apologize, but I will. Sorry.
> 
> Cry with me on Tumblr: @rudderless-in-an-ocean-of-stars


End file.
